Saved By You

Prologue

The thing that my father did is what drove my mother out of the house, made him even more crazy and put me in hospital with a coma.

I was 15 at the time. I was always quiet, kept my head down and made sure no one ever noticed me. They did though. Of course they did. And me being quiet didn’t stop the kids at school to talk; it didn’t stop them from pointing and whispering, thinking I didn’t know, thinking I didn’t talk.

I didn’t. But I have my reasons. The only time I talk is when I need to. When it’s totally necessary – which is practically never.

The night I went into a coma was when my mum threatened to leave. Instead she got a beating from my dad and when she lost her consciousness I jumped in and tried to make him stop. He wouldn’t obviously and gave me a hard shove where I tumbled back and fell into the TV. It hit the wall and my dad turned to me, craziness in his eyes after all the alcohol he had consumed. He advanced on me and I begged him to stop, I told him not to hurt me. But he did. He threw me out of the back window, smashing the glass, and hit me over and over until I felt the world slipping from my grasp. I didn’t care though, not at the time, all I wanted was the blackness to eat me, to take me away from this hellhole.

Finally he stopped and left me out the back, freezing to death and wishing I was dead.

I'd never self-harm though, that’s one thing I didn’t like, I get enough hurt and blood that there's really no point in hurting myself anyway. Though I won’t say I haven’t tried it.

As the snow fell onto my shivering, bleeding body I pulled myself up and forced myself to walk out the front door, the man they call my father passed out in the lounge room beside my unconscious mother, the sight of him making me want to puke.

I could feel everything inside me, screaming to just give up already and sit right where I am, let the snow cover me and take me to a world of numbness. But it seemed my brain had something else in plan and as much as I could feel my rib searing in pain as I could feel my broken limbs, I could even feel my consciousness slipping. I honestly had no idea why I was walking around the dark street dragging my broken bleeding body across the sidewalk.

Then as I walked across the street everything happened at once. A horn. A scream. Lights blinding me. Then a smash. Me with the car.

Maybe this was God’s way of saying there’s more pain out there than a bashing. Maybe my brain had this in mind – throwing my body in front of a car. Or maybe, just maybe, I didn’t want to live anymore. Maybe I did it on purpose.

When I woke up in a hospital no one was in the room with me I groaned but no longer felt the broken bones. Had they healed? How long have been unconscious?

I went to sit up but my bones were too weak, too fragile, then suddenly a doctor comes running in. A lady doctor. She was looking at me so concerned it almost scared me; no one has ever cared about me for a very long time. Too long.

She frowned and held a paperboard thing closer to her chest as she stepped forward and checked my temperature. Me staying quiet the whole time and just staring, watching her and wondering what she wanted.

‘I'm doctor Emily, how are you? Do you feel sick? Vomiting? A fever?’ she asks watching me so closely it made me want to shrink away.

I didn’t though. I just sat and stared at her like I could see straight through. She didn’t seem to notice though.

‘Would you like a drink? Food maybe? Can you move your hands?’ She keeps asking staring right back at me before her eyes flicker to the heart monitor beeping beside me.

I hate hospitals.

I hate doctors.

I hate nurses.

I hate people.

‘Sweetie, do you know what happened to you?’ she asks. I stared... She sighs. ‘Hun, you’ve been in a coma for almost three weeks now, do you understand that? You were in a crash. The man in the car claims you walked in front of the car before he could do anything. Is that true?’

I stared, blinked. She sighs. ‘Sweetie, you need to tell me your name so we can contact your parents. We tried to put you through the computer but nothing came up but the school you go to. And not even they could give me answers.’ She says softly, tired.

I looked away then from the sound of “parents”. Did they even count as parents? Maybe once upon a time they did. But now? They’re nothing to me.

After another two weeks of questions, interrogations, even police coming in to ask me things and shrinks trying to get to know me, the doctor finally gave up and got tired of my muteness.

Did my parents come at all? Not a chance.

So when I was stable enough to be let back out she stood by the plain white bed yet again and stared, quiet for a very long and awkward moment.

‘What is your name child? I believe there are things going on at home and you need to start talking to someone sooner or later. There is something I need to tell you though. It is very important and that’s why I needed your parents. I’m sorry that I have to break it to you though…’ she trails off waiting for an answer, a nod, anything.

I stared, blinked. She sighs. It seems we have a rhythm.

Is it that I'm dying? That I’ll be dead in another few hours and will only be home for a while til I can go off to the middle of nowhere and dye alone? That I have a disease and can no longer go home?

Of course not. My luck isn't that good. And instead she says; ‘You have a few years left in your life. You have problems in your body that have yet to recover but it seems your mind doesn’t want you to. It seems your body has shut down. There are other complicated things that we can't explain but all we know is that we’ve estimated around 900 days til your body… completely shuts down…’ she trails off, her eyes sad and watering.

But instead, for once, I looked away into the small window at the top which showed the sky, which showed the skies crying, water hitting the window, sky grey. It was as if the earth was crying for me but for some reason I could feel nothing.

No fear, no sadness, no curiosity, no happiness. Nothing.

And that's what comforted me.

‘Sweetie, I really need to know who your parents are, at least tell me what your name is.’ She practically begs.

I sighed and dug my nails into my palm before sighing, ‘Morgan,’ was all I whispered and that was the last time I ever said anything to anyone.

She left jeans and a thick purple jumper on the chair and I ignored her questions about my last name. I didn’t look at her. I didn’t talk. So she left and let me have a shower and change. She left and let me carry on with the thing I call life. She left and let me go home.

She left.

My mother’s car was gone when I stood in front of the house, and I knew that she had left while I was at the hospital and so I came home to an empty, dark lonely house. But that wasn’t unusual. What was though was the fact that my dad was in the lounge room passed out, beer cans and bottles all around him and the smell of it making me gag, he never passed out during the day; usually it was only nights so he can sleep and wake up really late during the day just to drink again.

‘Den?’ he slurs lifting his head slightly, eyes still closed but facing where I was at the hallway.

Denise. My mother. My beautiful, gutless mother.

My whole body freezes and I stand still for a moment, not daring to move let alone breathe. He groans and drops his head back on the floor with a bang and I waited for a few minutes before letting out my breath slowly and quietly, walking off and tip toeing quietly into my room down the corridor and shutting the door with a gasp of air as I sniffed in the familiar scent of my room. I turn and lock the door. It wasn’t any better than the outside of the bedroom but it didn’t reek with alcohol, smoke and old food. My bedroom just smelt… stale… but familiar – it was my bedroom; the only thing that made me feel safe and warm where there were no staring eyes or yelling.